I’m beyond tired tonight after a crazy weekend playing Mum’s taxi, so please forgive me if this post doesn’t make any sense.

This week I hit 73k – which I’m a little confused by as I SWEAR i wrote more than that but last blog post says I was at 65k, so that’s a DISMAL 8k for the week. Oh well… it’s better than nothing.

I’m now in the middle of the book and getting to the nitty-gritty of one of the main plots of the story. I don’t want to give too much away but suffice to say, things are about to get VERY complicated for the Patterson sisters. Oh, and speaking of the Patterson’s, am pretty sure I’ve changed my working title from PATTERSON’S CURSE to THE FAMILY CURSE. I feel it reflects the content of the book and genre a lot more.

Next week I’ll be on the road with Fiona Palmer for our big Western Australian Rural Romance tour – I’ll try to blog a couple of photos – but if not, you can keep up to date on Facebook, which I’ll update regularly. If you’re in WA and want to come see us, details of our events and locations are here!

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a little Charlie and Mitch! Things are getting a bit heated between them as well, although Mitch doesn’t appeared to have noticed yet 🙂

x

Rach!

Extract:

Everyone thanked Kate and Macca for their hospitality and all agreed they should do it more often, then Lisa and Tim bundled their small people into the wagon and Charlie climbed into Mitch’s truck beside him. She clicked her seat-belt into place, glancing at Mitch’s gorgeous profile as she did so. Totally dry now, he wore the board shorts he’d swum in and a scruffy old t-shirt but he could wear the daggiest clothes and still look hotter than any other guy on the planet.

Charlie sucked in a breath, wishing she hadn’t drunk as many beers as she had an intense urge to lean across the gear box and touch his face. Knowing the alcohol could be affecting her senses, she closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat, trying to forget about the fact that Mitch was sitting mere centimetres away. The awareness she felt was ridiculous considering they’d been friends for years and working alongside each other sometimes hours on end for weeks, but she couldn’t deny it was getting stronger.

And she couldn’t forget Kate’s insinuations or Lisa’s comment about the way Mitch looked at her. Could they be right? Something deep inside her tightened at the thought. As far as she knew he hadn’t seen any other women since she’d landed back in town but it had only been a month and she’d been keeping him pretty occupied at the motel.

‘You okay?’ Mitch asked.

She blinked open her eyes, realized they were already halfway down the driveway and nearing the road and summoned a chirpy smile to her face. ‘Yep, just reliving a great night. Thanks for making me come.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Mitch grinned and then reached up to turn on the overhead light. ‘And I hope I’m about to make it even better.’

Charlie’s heart clenched at his words, tingles racing up her spine. Was this it? Was he going to pull the truck over to the side of the road and confess he felt exactly the same way she did. ‘Oh?’ she only just managed to say, licking her lips in anticipation.

‘Check under your seat.’ His hands still sexily caressing the steering wheel, he nodded towards her feet.

Confused, she leant over, shoved her hand under the seat and drew out a thick, yellow A4 envelope. ‘What’s this?’

‘Look inside.’

She slid her finger beneath the seal to open it and then drew out the papers inside, frowning as she read over the first page. ‘It’s an application form. For an online course.’

‘Yep. In naturopathy.’

‘But I don’t understand.’

Mitch reached out and grabbed her hand – she tried not to react to his touch. ‘You’ve been doing amazing things in the motel, Charlie. I’m proud of you, your dad’s proud of you, but you gave up a dream to come home. This way you can study towards your degree and be around for Brian.’

‘I..’ She found herself lost for words, emotion clogging her throat at the thoughtfulness behind Mitch’s gesture. ‘Do you really think I can do this on top of everything else?’

‘Of course you can. Besides I’ll help you.’

Her insides lit up with excitement and possibility. In less than a month she’d already achieved more than she’d ever imagined she could towards improving the motel, so maybe this wasn’t such a crazy idea. ‘Oh Mitch. I could just kiss you,’ she said, hugging the paperwork to her chest.

His words were like a slap in the face, a bitter reminder of how he saw things between them. He cared about her, dammit he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to find out this course information if he didn’t, but he cared about her as a friend or like he would a sister. Just the mere possibility of her kissing him had brought a horror-stricken look to his face. That hurt but she was the only one to blame. Mitch had never given her any indication that he ever wanted more.

He might have grown from a skinny, nerdy boy into a strapping, gorgeous – inside and out – man, but Charlie hadn’t changed. Why would he ever find her plain mousey looks and nothing body attractive?

‘It was a figure of speech,’ she said quickly, congratulating herself for hiding her dismay. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a knot, I’d rather kiss a toad.’
‘That’s not very nice, Charlie-Wharlie.’ But he didn’t sound offended. He’d recovered from her mention of kissing him and was now tapping his fingers on the steering wheel along to the Australia Day countdown on the radio.

Charlie shoved the paperwork back in the envelope to look at later, then reached up and turned off the overhead light, making the truck dark again, just in case there was anything on her face that might give away her feelings.

Firstly I have to apologise for totally missing Week Seven’s blog – I don’t know where the last couple of weeks have gone, but I promise you I’ve been busy writing up a storm on Patterson’s Curse.

I’m pleased to report I hit 65,000 words, and am about to start chapter 22.

Usually I’m a fairly chronological writer but for this book, with four strong female point-of-views I’m jumping around a bit and writing a scene when it takes my fancy. I’ve also been doing a lot more planning than I’ve ever done on a novel before. Most of my planing is usually done on my head but with four sisters and thus four stories interlinked, I resorted to something other some other writers swear by. I bought some post-it notes, some highlighters and a massive piece of cardboard to stick on my wall and I created this:

Each of those yellow post-its is a scene that I know must happen before I get to the climax of the book and each colour is a sister. Sadly, there are a lot more scenes I need to add and I’m seriously beginning to worry about the length of this book. You guys will certainly get your money’s worth with this book 🙂 But I’m trying not to worry TOO much and just write.

Here’s a little extract for you until next week:

It was Hugo’s turn to frown. ‘But you’re definitely going ahead with having a baby on your own?’

‘Yes.’ If anything, the hassles of finding a donor had made her more and more convinced of her decision. With each disappointment, her yearning to have a child of her own grew stronger. The way she’d almost lost control of her emotions in theatre proved that she needed to see this decision through.

‘I’ll do it.’

‘Huh?’ Lost in thoughts about the beautiful baby she’d just delivered, she thought she must have misheard. Or that the conversation had moved onto some other topic without her noticing.

Hugo leaned forward and planted his elbows on her desk, clasping his hands together in the way he always did when he was serious or focused on something. Her heart picked up speed as he opened his mouth.

‘I’m offering you my sperm, Madeleine. That is if you find me, as a donor, suitable.’

Holy shit! Was he kidding? He checked all her boxes for suitability a hundred times over.

She couldn’t help the smile that burst on her face as she imagined what a baby made with their combined genes would look like. Would it have blonde hair like hers or the sophisticated copper of his? Until she’d met Hugo, she’d never imagined anyone with red hair could be sexy but he defied this myth. They were both tall and sporty, so unless they shared some weird recessive genes, their child would have good body structure and muscle tone. And they both had high IQs – she imagined them sitting on the floor doing flashcards with their super bright baby.

The word “perfect” popped into her head, until she remembered Hugo wouldn’t be sitting on the floor sharing parental duties. He wouldn’t be there for the good times or the bad. That wouldn’t be the arrangement. Her bubble deflating, a voice in her head said she should thank him for the very kind offer but decline. It was the sensible thing to do. After all, a close friend donor was never one of her options. And also, this hadn’t been Hugo’s idea originally. If Celia hadn’t suggested it at dinner, he’d never have come to her on his own. Would he?

‘Are you sure?’ The question came out of her mouth of its own accord but it was a good one. If, and it was a big if, they did do this, she wanted to make sure he wasn’t feeling pressured by Celia or herself.

He nodded. And the only time she’d ever seen him looking so serious was the rare times he lost a mother and/or baby unexpectedly. Despite today’s medical advances, it still happened occasionally. ‘I’ve barely thought about anything else the past few days. The idea of you going out and looking for a stranger to… to do this mammoth thing, just doesn’t sit right.’

Can’t believe I’m into week six of PATTERSON’S CURSE. On the one hand it feels like I’ve been writing it forever but that time has also gone super quick. There are another nine weeks until my deadline but two of those I’ll be touring with the fabulous Fiona Palmer so it’s really seven. And two of those seven are school holidays, during which I never seem to manage to write much (and fair enough… I want to hang out with my babies)!

Anyway I like a challenge and this book is certainly a challenge. But I’m not going to whinge and whine today, instead I want to share with you my favourite things about last week’s writing.

1) The romance! Although this book is more women’s fiction than straight romance, I can’t write without a least a little bit of romance plot. Each of the four sisters have a love interest, although I don’t think all will get their HEA in this book. But my favourite romance so far is that of sister #3 Charlotte (Charlie) Patterson and her childhood friend, Mitch McDonald. Mitch is most definitely a beta hero and probably my biggest challenge (cos I’m already so in love with him) will be making sure he isn’t TOO perfect. Below is a little extract from Charlie and Mitch’s storyline:

She slept through Port Augusta and Port Pirie and didn’t even stir until Mitch returned to the ute after stopping at a servo just outside of Adelaide. She startled as he closed the door behind him and settled back into his seat.

‘Hungry?’ he asked, a boyish grin stretched across his face as he held up two Golden North Giant Twin bars.

‘Oh my gosh,’ she shrieked, all but snatching one out of his hands. ‘I haven’t had one of these in years.’

He laughed, leaned back in his seat and ripped the wrapper of his ice-cream open. They sunk their teeth into the chocolate covered treat at exactly the same time and moaned in unison. Memories of their youth when they’d sit outside the Meadow Brook General Store on a wooden bench, stinking hot despite being under the shade of the veranda came into her head and she couldn’t help but smile even more.

‘Remember that time you lost your pocket money and couldn’t afford our after school snack?’ Mitch said, obviously thinking along similar lines to her.

‘Uh huh.’ She cringed, her cheeks flaring in embarrassment. ‘I cried because you’d be able to buy a Giant Twin and I wouldn’t.’ In her defense, she’d only been eight years old.

‘Your theatrics worked though, I gave you half of mine,’ he said, his tone amused. ‘You do realise I wouldn’t share one of these’ — He held up the few bites that were left of his ice-cream. ‘With just anyone.’

She swallowed her mouthful, relishing the way the cold creamy sugar melted on her tongue. ‘You are a true friend, Mitch McDonald.’

‘And don’t you forget it.’ He screwed up the wrapper of his Giant Twin and offered his hand out for hers. ‘I’ll go put these in the bin. Do you need to visit the conveniences before we get going again?’

‘Good idea.’ Charlie gave him her wrapper and opened the ute’s door, finishing her final mouthful as she climbed out. Truth was she could eat another but if she did, she’d probably feel sick. She didn’t want to ruin a good thing. After freshening up in the less than fresh bathroom of the service station, she headed back for the ute to find Mitch leaning up against the bonnet, basking in the rays of mid-afternoon sun. His square jaw roughened with dark stubble glinted in the sunlight and he looked utterly gorgeous but she pushed aside the curl of heat that flickered in her belly. Most of the time she simply thought of Mitch as her oldest and closest friend, a bit like the brother she never had, but every once in a while she felt things she didn’t want to feel.

2) The research. Normally I’m not a HUGE fan of research – I’m always worried about providing too much detail in case I a) get it wrong or b) bore my readers to tears – but I’m enjoying the research I’m doing about fertility for this book. And I’m learning a lot. Two of my sisters are trying to get pregnant in various ways for various reasons (don’t want to give the plot away), so I’ve been reading a lot around the subject of difficulty conceiving and fertility testing. In addition to this I put a call out on Twitter and FB for anyone who has had some personal experience in this area and was willing to answer some questions and I got a great response. People are SO generous and I thank those ladies who have replied to my plea!

One of the ladies told me during her time trying to conceive she bought a fertility statue. I’d never heard of one of these but she educated me and it is SO going in the book!! See picture of one below:

Right, I suppose I’d better get stuck into today’s writing. Thanks to everyone coming along on this journey with me. I hope you’re enjoying these blogs.

More and more authors are putting out novellas that are digital only to keep readers happy in between their longer stories. Some books will only ever be published digitally.

As I have a digital novella – TEASE ME, COWBOY – releasing next week, I thought it a fitting time to talk about HOW you can read an ebook if you don’t have a dedicated reading device.

I must confess I still read mostly print books. I love the feel and smell of a brand new book and I love having all my faves lined up in the bookshelf. I DON’T like the dust they gather because I think we’ve established before, I’m not a housekeeper. But I do also read books on my Kindle and now my iPad, even occasionally on my phone. But let’s forget about the Kindle e-reader for a moment and talk about HOW I could read if I only had a phone, tablet or even PC.

Most e-bookstores now also have apps you can download to your phone, tablet or computer to enable you to buy books from them and read them on whatever device you feel like doing so on.

If you don’t have a tablet and want to read on your computer, I suggest downloading the Kindle App for PC from Amazon. Click here for information on how to download this free app. You can then set up an Amazon account and purchase your digital book through Amazon and they will be magically delivered to the Kindle App on your computer.

If you have a tablet (e.g. iPad, Samsung Galaxy, etc) or a smart phone, you can download an app so you can buy from Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Booktopia, Google Play and many many more. Simply search in your devices app store. On my iPad I have the iBooks app, the Amazon app and the Google Play app, which means I can shop around and find the best priced book before buying.

I hope this has been helpful and that you’ll find away to access ebooks, even if it is only for novellas, which aren’t usually available in print!

Sorry – I missed one week of PATTERSON’S CURSE updates because I had almost a whole week away at the Romance Writers of Australia conference and then was too shattered last week to update. Besides I wrote about one page in that week, so there wasn’t really much to tell. Aside from that I had a fabulous time hanging out with my good writing buddies, meeting new friends and being inspired by AWESOME speakers. The highlight of the conference had to be listening to Cherry Adair – both in her plenary speeches and her workshops. What a fabulous person and amazing writer.

Malle Vallik form Harlequin gave a fabulous workshop on the writer’s brand, particularly what a good website should entail. Mine does okay according to her checklist but she had some fab ideas I’d love to enact so watch out for a new website for me soon 🙂

The Harlequin dinner and other social events were also big highlights. I posted some photos to my FB page but below are a couple of others from these nights:

Me hanging out at the Destiny welcome cocktail party with someof the fab team from Harlequin Australia.

After the Awards Dinner, Escape Publishing through a fab after party and hired a fun photo booth for the evening!

Now… for my PATTERSON’S CURSE update. Last week involved a lot of second guessing myself and deleting words, putting them back in, deleting them again and then putting them back in. I actually cried, which I haven’t done over a book for quite some time. I whinged to my husband and my good writing friends and they all offered advice and pep talks. Somehow I got over myself and decided that I WILL CONQUER THIS BOOK whatever it takes.

Some books are easy to write, some are hard. This one has been a bit of a challenge so far but I hope that means it’ll be AMAZING by the time you guys read it next year!

Progress thus far:

two chaps, which means I’m now into chapter eight

28,579 words so far (another week where I didn’t meet my word count goal but I’m hoping to make it up in the next couple of weeks)

Here’s an extract for you from this week’s words:

‘What happened to the woman who gave the curse?’ Abigail asked as Madeleine turned the car into the main street of Meadow Brook.

‘Oh, she stayed in town,’ Mags said, seemingly happy to tell all now she’d started. ‘Drove Laura wild, following her, shaking her head and fingers and uttering mumbo jumbo whenever she could. In fact, her daughter still lives in town. You might know her as Wacky Wanda.’

Madeleine almost swerved off the road and into the local Australia Post Box at this news. She recovered, brought the car back into the middle of the lane and then looked in the rear view mirror. Abigail looked deathly pale.

Oblivious, Mags continued. ‘Her real name is Gretna, she was the same age as my father but never attended school. She and her mum kept to herself until her mum died and Gretna still keeps to herself. I feel sorry for the old girl. She’s in her eighties and I’m not sure she’s ever left Meadow Creek in her life. Some say she’s not right in the head.’

Madeleine met Abigail’s gaze in the rear view mirror and saw her look of utter horror. ‘Sounds like the whole family weren’t right in the head,’ she said, rolling her eyes.

Mags laughed. ‘Crazy as cut snakes I’d say.’

‘But what if…’ Abigail’s question died on her tongue as Madeleine turned the van into the motel car park and saw an ambulance parked out the front.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Mags, leaning forward as if doing so would give her a better view.

At that moment the front door of the reception opened and Madeleine saw Charlie holding it open, a stricken expression on her face as two men in ambulance uniforms wheeled out a stretcher, Lucinda bringing up the rear.

‘Dad!’ gasped Abigail.

Madeleine flung open the door and almost tripped in her efforts to get to him. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded to no one in particular as she stopped alongside the stretcher, glancing at the oxygen mask and defibrillator attached to her dad.

‘He had some kind of turn. They think it’s his heart,’ replied Lucinda, her voice shaky. ‘They’re taking him to Port Augusta.’

Madeleine looked from her dad’s ashen face to the serious expressions of the volunteer ambulance officers. ‘Mitch,’ she said, recognising one of them. ‘Have you given him Aspirin or a GTN spray?’

‘Yes. We’ll look after him, Mads.’ He offered her what she guessed was meant to be a reassuring smile.

She puffed out a breath. ‘I’m coming with you.’ Mitch might be very good at driving trucks and fixing things but what did he know about fixing people? And as for the other volunteer, he didn’t look old enough to buy his own underwear.

I must admit this week has been a bit of a struggle for words! Possibly because I took a couple of days break to finish the final read through of THE ROAD TO HOPE and therefore didn’t start writing PATTERSON’S CURSE again until Tuesday. But I think it’s more to do with a horrible, crippling thing called SELF-DOUBT.

I think because this is a slightly different kind of book to my rural romances, I’m stressing that it’s not working. In a romance I almost always introduce the hero and heroine in the first chapter and get straight to the action – their ‘backstories’ come out as they face their issues and learn more about each other. However with this book – my first attempt at women’s fiction with only a splash of romance – I’m setting up four sisters and the premise. I think because I had to introduce ALL the sisters and set the scene of them being back in the small town of Meadow Creek at their family’s motel, before I got to introduce the CURSE, I worried that it was slow. I worried that readers might not stick with me to get to the good bits. I worried that these first few chaps weren’t good enough. Basically, I’ve realised where my writing is concerned I’m a worrier.

My heart and gut tell me the book is okay – that meeting these very different sisters and throwing them back home together is interesting and will keep people reading but my brain or the little crow of doubt on my shoulder keeps shouting otherwise.

I think it also had a bit to do with chronology. I had a few things I knew MUST happen and I got them mixed up. Until I worked out the problem, I couldn’t go forward and I doubted everything. I know some writers skip back and forth, writing scenes all over the shop and then stitching them all together but that’s never worked for me. Although this time I might be tempted to try – if one sister is giving me grief, I’ll try switching to another.

Anyway the good news is that despite this being a slower week than I’d hoped, I’ve made progress and I’m finally happy with what I’ve got. I also reformatted the chapters and made them a little smaller, so now I have MORE, which looks like I made more progress than I did. Yay!

‘Okay, I’ll admit,’ Madeleine said after taking her first sip, ‘now I’m curious.’

Abigail smiled. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’

‘Maybe we should just leave it,’ Lucinda suggested, twisting the stem of her wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Mum and Dad obviously don’t want us knowing. I trust their judgment and shouldn’t we respect their opinion?’

Charlie nodded. ‘I agree. If we didn’t stumble on the cards we’d be none the wiser.’

‘But we did,’ Abigail pleaded.

‘And I for one have better things to do than spend all eternity wondering if some curse is going to strike me down dead when I least expect it,’ Madeleine announced. Abigail couldn’t tell if she was taking the piss or not, but at least she now wanted to know.

Charlie shot Madeleine a disbelieving glare. ‘I didn’t think you’d place any importance on things like curses? Aren’t they along the same lines as palm reading, horoscopes and all the other things you take great joy teasing me about.’

‘Maybe.’ Madeleine shrugged. ‘But none of those things affect me personally. This one is a “Patterson” curse. I think we have a right to know.’

Silence followed and Abigail guessed her sisters were all pondering the same thing as her. Did they have a right to know? And did she really want to know? What if the curse was something about death or bad luck or disease? She shuddered. Dad’s brother, Uncle William had died long before his time when he was caught in a rip on a family holiday to Goolwa Beach. And as Madeleine had just informed them, Dad’s aunts had died in a horrific car accident. One of William’s sons – their cousin Tim – had died at only three years old of a brain tumour. Sheesh! Maybe there really was some ghastly Patterson’s Curse.

‘So how do you plan on finding out?’ Lucinda asked. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep pestering Dad in his current state.’

‘Yes, Lucinda, thank you for that blindingly obvious piece of information.’ Madeleine tapped her fingernails on the bar. ‘We could make general enquires to locals who’ve been living in Meadow Brook forever and might know something.’

Lucinda shook her head. ‘You’ve been in big cities too long. Word would get back to Dad and he’d be upset we’d gone behind his back. Look I think we should just forget about it and concentrate on the important things, like sorting through Mum’s stuff and helping with the motel.’

‘What do you think, Charlie?’ Madeleine asked.

‘I think sometimes knowledge is dangerous,’ which Abigail guessed was Charlie’s way of saying maybe they should let this go.

Today I have yet another friend (aren’t I blessed) and fabulous author on my blog – a warm welcome to Alli Sinclair. I first met Alli a few years ago at the Romance Writers of Australia conference and instantly fell in love with her, so I’m so pleased she landed a three book deal with my wonderful publisher HARLEQUIN BOOKS! Alli’s book sounds amazing and I loved the sample I read, so I can’t wait to pick my own copy up next week when I go to Perth… but until then, it’s over to Alli to talk about her love of Argentina and how it inspired LUNA TANGO.

The first time I arrived in Argentina, I had dreams of scaling Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas. Before commencing the expedition I had a five day layover in Buenos Aires and what started out as a simple exploration of the Paris of the Americas led to a never-ending love affair with Argentina.

The natural beauty, divine architecture, rich cultural heritage, friendly people (and mouthwatering ice-cream!) captivated me in a way no other country has done since. The hauntingly beautiful tango music captured my soul as I learnt to dance in traditional tango halls, the experience changing my life forevermore.

One of my most prized possessions are these tango paintings I bought from an artist in San Telmo, a district in Buenos Aires crowded with cobblestoned streets that snake between baroque buildings housing antique shops and 1940s style restaurants. As the tango musicians played and dancers created magic with their graceful moves, the artist handed me the paintings and said, ‘I hope you have a nice place to hang my art in your home.’ Not long after I realized the paintings, and my heart, had found a new home—in Argentina.

BLURB:

Tango, like love, is complicated

Desperate to understand the reason her mother abandoned her twenty years ago to become a world-class tango dancer, journalist Dani McKenna delves into the world of tango in the hope of exposing decades of lies and deception that have threatened three generations of her family.

When Dani meets the enigmatic Carlos Escudero—a revered tango dancer and man of intense passion—they work together to understand why her grandmother lives in fear of all things tango, and how the brutal murder of a tango music legend in 1950s Buenos Aires now affects her family.

Despite her lack of rhythm, Dani and Carlos create their own dance of the souls, until the differences in their cultures causes a deep rift. As she seeks to reconnect with Carlos and rebuild her family, Dani finds tango—the dance of passion—becomes a complicated dance of betrayal.

And Alli is launching a super special competition on the official release day this Friday – the winner will receive a one-off prize that has been created especially for this competition. Click below for more information:

For those in Melbourne and surrounds, you are invited to the Luna Tango book launch and tango event held on 21 August at Readings Hawthorn. Tickets are $10 and will include a tango show and lesson, wine and food. Proceeds of tickets will go to Parkinson’s Victoria, an organisation very dear to Alli’s family.

Please note: due to limited space ticket bookings prior to event is essential.

Week two is just kicking off here in PATTERSON’S CURSE land so as promised here’s my update.

Progress thus far:

two chapters

10,348 words

This is not quite as far along as I was hoping to be by now as I’m aiming for 15k per week. However this week I had an evening event in a town two hours away and also the final read through edit of THE ROAD TO HOPE (out March 2015) to do. So I’m trying not to berate myself too much.

In addition to these chaps I made a lot more notes this week about what will happen in certain scenes and tried to jot down some sort of time line for necessary events. Much of my “plotting” happened when I’m out on my daily walk with Rose my dog and if I feel the need, I use the voice recorder on my phone to make I don’t forget.

I’m working my way into this novel, which is a little different (as I said to my others).

I have four sisters – Madeleine, Lucinda, Charlie and Abigail – and the challenge for me is telling their stories equally, knowing when to change from one point-of-view to another. I think this will be easier as I progress into the story but in these early chaps when I’m trying to set the scene, it’s a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

In my romances I try to get to the action of the story fairy quickly – I guess I mean showing the conflict and attraction between the hero and heroine at at least the first couple of chapters, but I have noticed in women’s fiction authors often take more chapters to set up the premise. That is certainly my experience so far with PATTERSON’S CURSE. I’m trying not to stress too much about this and just follow my gut and I’m praying like crazy it’s working.

Hope to have more of an update on how the story is progressing next week.

Today I have a very special person on my blog. Not only have I just read her debut book BREAKING THE DROUGHT, which I loved but I have met Lisa Ireland and am lucky enough to call her my friend. Lisa’s new book is a rural romance published by Escape Publishing and tells the story of a city girl gone bush – one of my favourite rural romance tropes. I’ll stop babbling over and hand over to Lisa to tell you all about her inspiration for this great book, but don’t forget to comment at the end of the blog to win a copy of BREAKING THE DROUGHT!

Welcome Lisa…

A Fish Called Lisa

In my recent release, Breaking the Drought, city girl Jenna is a fish out of water, struggling to survive a week in a tiny country town.

Poor Jenna, I really put her through the wringer in my story. She has to face some hard realities of country life (and she gets to reap some of the rewards too, of course!) After all I put her through Jenna might be comforted to know that once upon a time I was the new girl in a country town.

As a graduate teacher I was posted to a small school in rural Victoria. I was delighted with my appointment and was sure I would take to country life like a duck to water. After all, I came from farming stock. My dad grew up on a dairy farm not far from my new home. And I’d been holidaying in the country all my life. How hard could the transition be?

Hmm … Apparently weekends being spoilt by my aunt at her country home didn’t adequately prepare me for life away from the big smoke. I had more than one embarrassing moment.

Take for instance the time I ran screaming from the equipment shed because I spied a snake settled amongst the cricket stumps and volley balls. One of the grade six boys comforted me by explaining gently that it was “only a snake” and “he’s probably more afraid of you, Miss, than you are of him.” Yeah right!

Then there was the mousetrap incident. Not long after I moved to Longford there was a mouse plague. I was woefully unprepared for this event. In addition to being afraid of all rodents I’m also terrified of dead things. I tried to deal with the never-ending stream of mice in my house by using those plastic mousetraps that are completely covered so you can’t see what’s inside. But I was too much of a wuss to empty them so I would just put the whole thing in the bin. I was spending an absolute fortune on mousetraps!

When my colleagues discovered this fact I was the butt of staff room jokes for about a month. However, I’m happy to say my co-workers took pity on me and spent some time helping me to “mouse-proof” my house. And they took turns to come by and empty the traps for me too. How’s that for neighbourly love? Eventually my problem was solved for good when I acquired a cat.

I was also teased by my colleagues about a number of other “city girl” quirks, including my penchant for inappropriate footwear and my tendency to run out of petrol on a regular basis. I lived about 20 kilometres from the nearest petrol station. Having come from the city where there’s one on every corner I wasn’t used to planning ahead! Luckily one of the perks of living in a small town is that when you’re in trouble (conked out on the side of the road!) it’s never long before someone you know stops to give you a hand.

Just like Jenna, I was a fish-out-of-water when I first moved to the country from the city, but it wasn’t long before long rural life got under my skin.

I don’t live in Longford anymore, but I’m still a country girl at heart.

Thanks so much for sharing your hilarious stories Lisa. I know there are lots of country-girls-at-heart reading this blog and I hope they’ll read your story and enjoy it as much as I did. Read the blurb below and feel free to share your embarrassing or scary country stories in the comments section.

BREAKING THE DROUGHT Blurb:

When a smooth-talking, sophisticated city girl comes striding into town on her stiletto heels, he’s the last person who wants to notice…

When Jenna McLean gets roped into attending a matchmaking ball in a small country town, she holds no illusions of meeting the man of her dreams. A no-nonsense magazine editor, Jenna doesn’t believe in leaving love to chance, which is why she’s developed Marriage Material – a fool-proof framework for husband hunting. Shearers and farmhands need not apply.

Sheep grazier Luke Tanner has met women like Jenna before, and knows not to waste his time. With the drought dragging on and bushfire season around the corner, the last thing he needs is a spoiled city girl like Jenna adding to his problems. He’ll help out with the ball because it’s good for the community, but he won’t dance, he won’t flirt, and he definitely won’t be matched.

It’s been a long dry season, but everyone knows when it rains, it pours.

You can buy BREAKING THE DROUGHT From Amazon, Kobo and all good e-book retailers.

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about me

Writer for MIRA and Carina Press, Supermarket owner, "retired" English teacher (don't hold that against me), undomestic goddess, proud wifey and mum of three incredibly gorgeous heroes-in-training! Life is good :)